A JOURNEY THROUGH THE LONG SIXTIES For those of you unfortunates who did not live during the time of The Long Sixties described so eloquently in this memoir, all you need do is read it, and do not doubt that these magical things really did happen. Mim Scala recounts his charmed life, it's inhabitants and experiences in a succinct manner, neither embellishing nor exaggerating. Yes, Sex,Drugs and Rock n Roll go togethe r; Scala uses a delicate and dare say, gentlemanly writing style that describes just enough of the hedonism without being garish or crude. The uninitiated may doubt some of the more "far out", magical times he recalls so well, but believe me, if you have not delved into that realm, you have no alternative other than to know that it happened, and be sorry you missed it. This book should be required reading for any student of history. It is that good. PUNCH MAGAZINE REVIEW"There have been a lot of books about the Sixties but very few have captured the excitement and uniqueness of the period. The best two, The best two, so far, are Mim’s book and Stoned by the Rolling Stones first manager Andrew Loog Oldham . You had to be there to appreciate the best decade of the 20th. century" 'An in-yer-face celebration of all that was excessive, anarchic, socially disruptive and wildly exciting about the fabled youthquake that began in the 1950s...You name them, Mim was partying with them...narrated with breathless pace' Val Hennessy, Daily Mail theherald.co.uk Reproduced with permission.The heady ferment of Sixties culture: the sharp-suited world of cockney hustlers, the intoxicating buzz of Swinging London in its heyday - fashion, theatre, film and above all the great pop music, pulsing through Soho clubs, Chelsea coffee bars, Carnaby Street boutiques and decadent country-house weekends. In his Diary of a Teddy Boy: A Memoir of the Long Sixties, Mim Scala the Pied Piper leads us on a kaleidoscopic dance down the years, from ice-cream salesman in the East End of London, to gambler, agent, record-producer and hippie traveller.Wherever the action was, Mim Scala was there. Riding high on a roller-coaster of flickering fame and fortune, Mim entertains Diana Dors, hosts gaming parties with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, evades the wrath of the Kray Twins, bumps into Bill Burroughs in Morocco, hires Dennis Hopper, cajoles Jean-Luc Godard into filming the Rolling Stones, turns down the musical Hair on the say-so of Salvador Dali, signs Cat Stevens to Island Records, and minds Marianne Faithfull through her stunning Broken English comeback.When his friend Brian Jones dies in July 1969, Mim also senses the death of an era. He reinvents himself as a psychedelic nomad in Sri Lanka, explores North Africa in his miracle vehicle Shadowfax, and in Tangiers records the G'naoua sect of dervish musicians. At each twist and turn of this journey of survival and redemption. Mim is forever 'looking to be amazed', constantly finding companions equally moved by his passion for 'creative hedonism'. Richly anecdotal, humorous and quintessentially of its time and ours - Diary of a Teddy Boy: A Memoir of the Long Sixties conveys like few other memoirs what it was like to experience, and to propel, the most pivotal decade of the twentieth century.Mim Scala lives in County Carlow, Ireland 'There are shades of Hunter S. Thompson in Scala's helter skelter journey.... and hints of Kerouac in it's wide-eyed abandon.... Scala is utterly irreverent in his treatment of the pillars of 1960's London - Wealth, sex, drugs, and rock and roll' Sunday Business Post (Ireland) Diary of a Teddy Boy by Mim Scala " ..... comes as a refreshing and timely antidote to the deluge of miserable childhood biographies that have dominated Irish literary fiction since Frank McCourt introduced us to Angela." The Sunday Business Post 16th April 2000 Source: The Herald (Glasgow) Sat 24-Feb-2001 theherald.co.uk © SMG Newspapers, 2001. Reproduced with permission. The heady ferment of Sixties culture: the sharp-suited world of cockney hustlers, the intoxicating buzz of Swinging London in its heyday - fashion, theatre, film and above all the great pop music, pulsing through Soho clubs, Chelsea coffee bars, Carnaby Street boutiques and decadent country-house weekends. In his Diary of a Teddy Boy: A Memoir of the Long Sixties, Mim Scala the Pied Piper leads us on a kaleidoscopic dance down the years, from ice-cream salesman in the East End of London, to gambler, agent, record-producer and hippie traveller. Wherever the action was, Mim Scala was there. Riding high on a roller-coaster of flickering fame and fortune, Mim entertains Diana Dors, hosts gaming parties with Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, evades the wrath of the Kray Twins, bumps into Bill Burroughs in Morocco, hires Dennis Hopper, cajoles Jean-Luc Godard into filming the Rolling Stones, turns down the musical Hair on the say-so of Salvador Dali, signs Cat Stevens to Island Records, and minds Marianne F